Fathoms
by Duck Life
Summary: War begins, the never-introduced Jace and Clary caught on opposing sides. But what happens when they meet? Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**CLARY'S POV**

Isabelle swung her whip at me, and I deflected it with my knife. The whip snapped back and curled around a post. Before she could unwind it, I ducked under the shimmering rope and brought my knife to her throat. She tensed, and I froze like that until I heard Hodge's applause.

"Very good, Clary," he laughed. I relaxed and slipped the knife back into my sheath. "I don't think I've ever seen someone with that sort of speed and agility with a knife." Izzy grumbled and started to wrap her whip around her wrist again.

"Now it's my turn," challenged Alec, coming up from behind our tutor. He had a wicked glint in his eyes, like he wanted to get revenge on me for beating his sister.

"Alec," warned Hodge lightly. Alec wasn't as quick on his feet as I was.

"No," I smiled. "Bring it." Alec narrowed his eyes and pulled a sword down from the wall. I grabbed one, too, and we began to practice dueling.

I don't live at the Institute, but I train there with Alec and Isabelle. I live in an apartment with my mom and my stepdad, Luke. I've lived in New York all my life, but Mom and Luke are from the Shadowhunter home country, Idris. Mom says she couldn't bear to stay there after my dad and my brother died in a fire, and Luke had come with her for support.

Alec swung his sword towards my head, and I had to duck to avoid it as it whistled through the air. I sliced upward, knocking the sword out of his hands. It clattered to the floor a few feet away. I brought the sword point to the center of his chest. "I win."

**JACE'S POV**

I twirled the seraph blade in my hand, following the silvery-blue streak it became with my eyes. Father lunged at me, and I swung the blade up to keep his at bay. He flicked his wrist, sending my own blade plummeting out of my hands. I ducked, rolled to avoid his blade, and stretched out my arm to snatch my fallen sword. In seconds, I was pinning him to the ground with it. After a moment, he waved me away, and I stood up and extended a hand to help my father up. He took it gratefully, and then he began to put away the fighting supplies.

"Dad?" I asked tentatively. He looked at me, mildly surprised at the softness of my tone. "Dad, who was my mom?"

I'm a Shadowhunter- an elite guild of demon killers- and I've lived with my father in Idris my entire life. Apparently, he had to live in exile because of the Uprising, which others wrongly believed was a bad thing. Father was simply weeding- trying to remove the bad Shadowhunters. He'd always told me that my mother had deserted me when I was a baby, but I really wanted to meet her. I felt like something was missing from my life, and it was- I had no mother.

"Your mother was a hateful person," said Dad briskly. "She abandoned you and she abandoned me."

"What was her name?" I begged. He didn't seriously expect me to live my entire life and know nothing about my mother?

"Jocelyn," he answered quietly. "Jocelyn Fairchild." 


	2. Chapter 2

**JACE'S POV**

As the sun fell beneath the horizon in a blaze of orange, I felt my father rest his hand on my shoulder. "Is it time?" I asked tonelessly without looking away from the last tinges of sunset.

"Almost," he whispered. "Sebastian is coming." Sebastian was Father's adoptive son, the boy he'd taken after Michael Wayland, a member of Father's Circle, had died. **(A/N: Not really! Hee hee… This is supposed to be dramatic irony, but I didn't want anyone to get confused!) **I'd met him only once, as my dad raised us apart. Sebastian was intimidating, and he seemed apathetic about most things.

"And then…" I trailed off, imagining the traces of sunlight staining the horizon were flames.

"And then we attack."

**CLARY'S POV**

When I got home, Mom was hastily rereading a yellowed letter, singed at the edges- a fire message. Her eyes were wide, and her hair was escaping her loose ponytail in a way that made her look frantic and worried.

"Mom?" I asked softly. "What's wrong?" She looked up at me, and her face reminded me of the day she'd gone to pick me up at school the day the planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

"He did it," she whispered, horrified. "He actually did it."

"Who?" I needled, worried. "Who did what?"

"Your father," she answered, visibly shaking.

"Luke?" I was very confused.

"Not Luke. Your real father." Her words chilled me into a shocked silence. But… my father was dead? Wasn't he?

As if reading my mind, Mom replied, "He didn't die. I'm sorry, Clary, I lied to you. Your real father was… he was evil, Clary, I had to leave him. Evil." _Evil? _I couldn't imagine someone saying these things about a man she'd once loved, but it had to be true. But I still didn't know what had happened.

"He attacked the Gard," she told me. "With demons. Clary, that's like the White House of Idris." I felt nauseous as her words finally fell into place in my scrambled mind.

"We'll fight back," I answered, my voice shockingly calm. I wondered who was speaking; it couldn't have been me. "This is a war. We're going to fight back." My mother just stared at me, a sad smile tugging at her lips.

"Of course we will."


	3. Chapter 3

**CLARY'S POV**

We were all lined up outside in front of a swirling Portal conjured by Magnus Bane, Alec's warlock friend. Mom and Maryse Lightwood had decided that any Shadowhunter sixteen or older could go to Idris to fight, so Max, Isabelle and Alec's younger brother, was staying in New York with Hodge. Isabelle and Alec's dad, Robert Lightwood, had gathered the Conclave and their children over sixteen, and we were all standing outside the Portal. There were less than a hundred of us, but nobody was worried. Mom assured us that the Clave had already gathered a huge army, though how she knew this I wasn't sure.

The time came, and Magnus ushered us one by one into the Portal, and I was wrought with apprehension about what we would find on the other side.

**JACE'S POV**

Demons were pouring out of the seeming rip in the air, and Father was directing them to a nearby field. Sebastian kept clapping his hands and grinning, laughing with wicked joy when he saw some of the most ferocious demons.

I felt nauseous, but not watching the demons made me feel like I was less brave than Sebastian was. I'd killed demons before, and it wasn't as if they usually made me nauseous. It was just… I'd never thought that we would be using the demons to kill other Shadowhunters. It felt wrong.

"These people are weak," Father had told me. "They are cowards and villains. They associate with monsters. In fact," he'd joked, "I wouldn't be surprised if they befriended my demon army and invited them up to the Gard for a chess tournament."

Now Father walked over to me smiling. "They've decided not to fight," he said gleefully. "The Clave is surrendering already."


End file.
